Saturday, 22 November 2014

Vehicles and equipment captured, operated and destroyed by the Islamic State inside Iraq

By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans

This list only includes captured vehicles and equipment of which photo
or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of
equipment captured and destroyed by the Islamic State may be higher than recorded
here. Some civilian vehicles such as Toyota Hilux pickup trucks are not included in this list. A great deal of effort has been put into
avoiding double listings.

Tank operations by the Islamic State in Iraq are virtually nonexistent, and only one instance is known in which the Islamic State used a tank. The M1A1s that were captured intact were stripped of their machine guns and associated ammunitions before set on fire.

The Islamic State never captured any FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS as Iraq only operates Stingers on AN/TWQ-1 Avenger self-propelled surface-to-air missile systems, all stationed far away from the battlefield.

The Islamic State never captured any Blackhawks at Mosul as Iraq doesn't operate any Blackhawks. Google Earth footage showing numerous Blackhawks stationed at Mosul shows U.S. Blackhawks stationed here in 2004. All flying assets are believed to have been evecuated before the fall of the airbase.

A list showing vehicles and equipment captured and operated by the Islamic State in Syria can be found here.

21 comments:

Vouw Oryx,really!!Did you really count and analyse all of the HMWWVs from the photos?Congrats man. :)Thx for this really detailed analyse.And i hope the faulty photo counting percentage is low,so we can assume 85-90% of your counting is correct.Keep the good work.

Why do they destroy some of the captured equipments like trucks,jeeps and armoured vehicles which they can use? Can we assume that they've been already sabotaged when they are captured? Or there arent no time to transport these vehicles in the middle of the battle?

Interesting that where ISIL is tactically victorious and in sole possession of the battlefield, captured-intact tanks and other AFVs are deemed liabilities-- in terms of force visibility, logistical requirements and organizational limitations-- to instead be rendered destroyed.

Concerning Mi-35M, only one has been shot down on 3rd october. The other one claim by ISIS in June is a fake. The photo (http://s27.postimg.org/iinm0fho3/0_faabe_51480d79_orig.jpg) of the wreckage has been taken in February, it is a Mi-17 shot down. The photos of the paper of a pilot have been taken on him when he was kidnapped on the road to his base. My source are the pilots of Iraqi Army Aviation !

Info I have from same sources (IAF) is also the same, but both photos seem of Mi-35/Mi-24 wreckage, probably from different places and times (see also landscape). We should be careful as there are hundreds of pics floating around, not all legit and some probably curde fakes. But work done here is fantastic and should be praised. As I said in the post regarding Syrian captured hardware, we should add all this to weaponry and equipment already in possession of ISIS and its allies and accomplices before the takeover of major bases in both countries.

Agree with the idea that the number floated by WSJ and others is exaggerated. Several ISF units in N/NW Iraq were equipped with the M198, but some pieces were retrieved, others destroyed by the Iraqis themselves, and still others taken by Kurdish forces. We have three clips of ISIS using the M198, but no more than three cannons appear in each. If we can declassify these images we will send you for analysis. On the Fath: if you put it as operated, than you are referring to all hardware ISI/IS is supposed to have deployed in Iraq, right? Last but not least: what do you make of alleged sightings of SA-14's - and possibly SA-16 and 18 - in the hands of IS fighters?